


Live to become the villain

by maigonokaze



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Prompt, Villain!Tony, playing with nukes, the hero becomes the villain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 02:11:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4769663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maigonokaze/pseuds/maigonokaze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>500 word ficlet prompt: at the end of the Avengers, when Tony flies through the portal with the nuke, he gets pulled into an alternate universe version of New York where there are no superheros/villains. The nuke goes off and the Iron Man armor protects him, but now he's basically become the supervillain of this universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Live to become the villain

The Chitauri poured through the portal as Tony shifted the weight of the nuke on his shoulders. He accelerated into the gap. Space squeezed around him as he entered the channel between worlds, and then some force hooked around him and yanked sideways.

He fell through a cloudless sky over New York City. No smoldering buildings or Chitauri monsters filled the streets below, only swarms of people and lines of yellow taxis. Tony scrambled in midair to reverse his fall. But the missile had its own forward trajectory and what had been “up” coming through the portal was now “down” and directly toward Central Park. He looked up for the portal, but it closed behind him. The nuke clicked and began to beep. 

Tony didn’t know if the countdown on the nuke was five minutes or fifteen seconds. It took only a glance to know there were millions of people below. And he had a nuclear bomb with not nearly enough time to get it away from the population center.

Tony grunted as he forced the missile off its path, pointing it into the harbor instead of the city center. It wasn’t enough. He needed to push it to a horizontal trajectory that would take it over the ocean.

The red altitude line swam in front of Tony’s vision.

5000 feet.

3000 feet. His angle was improving.  Maybe there would be time to get this baby out over deep water.

1000 feet. The beeping next to his ear increased.

500 feet. Sandy Hook and Breezy Point lay just ahead, and beyond that the open sea.

Until he hit the water, Tony told himself he would still be able to do it. No such luck. He hit the water and the bomb exploded on impact.  

His suit protected him from the blast. A nuclear bomb exploded on his shoulder and the worst Tony felt was a jarring motion as the concussive force slammed him underwater. 

He didn’t want to come to the surface, didn’t want to see the damage caused by a 15 megaton detonation. But he had to breathe eventually.

He had gotten it far enough away to not flatten the entire city. The air blast radius caught the southern half of Brooklyn. But Tony knew the thermal radiation would extend for miles more.

A squadron of fighter jets closed in as Tony surfaced; he couldn’t stop the instinct of self-preservation as they attacked. Moments later he landed among the wreckage of four F-22s. On the horizon, a dozen more approached: too late to defend their city, but still determined to take down the villain.

Tony crouched in his radiation-stained Iron Man suit. This was not a fight he wanted. This was not a world he even wanted to be on. But if he wanted to get back to his own world, this would have to be a fight he survived.

He assumed a battle-stance and muttered to Jarvis, “Anything that gets a target lock on me comes out of the sky.”

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! Getting this one in just 500 words was a challenge. My first go at it was close to 800 and then I had to slice it down. Fun prompt though. I honestly wasn’t sure I’d be able to get that done in 500 words.  
> Disclaimer: I don't own Iron Man or Tony Stark or Marvel or anything. I don't make any profit from writing fanfic, but I do really appreciate getting paid in kudos and comments!


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